The Moon of Sorrows

by P. K. Lentz

“Vax...” Arixa commed one last time. She didn’t say more. Either he would reply or not.

  One last time, the Branch III exited the planetary rings, far from where it had entered them and far from where the Noruz had either retrieved the object which may or not contain a living or dead Ivar—or been destroyed.

  The ship weaved randomly to foil Howler fire but maintained a more or less constant direction: away from the gas giant. The distance from the planet required for a safe Shift was far lower for the small Branch III than the mammoth Sagaris, but some margin was still required. The distance needed would be greater for the Noruz—or it would simply have to risk a failed Shift, and certain death.

  For one who wished to avoid serious risk to his ship and crew, Vax had assumed a great deal of it. More risk, even, than the Dawners who had far more stake in Ivar’s rescue.

  In return, Vax probably deserved that promises made to him be kept by those he helped. Pity that Arixa couldn’t honestly say whether they would be or not.

  But the time to be concerned with promises made in the heat of a battle was on the battle’s other side. On the side of survival. On the other side of the rising whine of the Shift drive and Cinnea’s countdown: “4...3...2...”

  Twenty-One

  From ample experience, Arixa knew well the effects of Shifting on her body, and she felt them now: the crawling of her skin as the small hairs upon it lost their insignificant weight; the subtle unsettling of internal organs; the acid spike from stomach to chest as after a meal that didn’t sit well. And, of course, the immediate lowering of a veil over her eyes which washed away every color that wasn’t Blue.

  Arixa immediately unharnessed and drifted out of her station.

  Cinnea reached out and touched Tomiris’s arm, gaining her attention in order to deliver a silent look conveying respect for her accomplishment. Tomiris grinned, rightly proud.

  “Nine minutes to rendezvous,” Cinnea said.

  Doubtless it would seem much longer before they learned the answers to a string of questions, each dependent on the one before:

  Whether the Noruz had survived.

  Whether it had succeeded in intercepting the pod before it was swallowed by a planet.

  Whether Ivar was in the pod.

  Whether or not Ivar was a corpse.

  Gliding out of the bridge, Arixa returned to the common area where the majority of the Dawn looked eagerly to her for news.

  She gave it. “We’re alive. Soon we’ll find out whether Ivar is.” Silence met her pronouncement. “Nothing to say, Bowyn?”

  “Congratulations,” he said. “Truly.”

  Either in spite of the addition or because of it, he sounded insincere.

  “I thank you for the use of your ship,” Arixa said. “Soon we’ll need never cross paths again.”

  “I’ll believe that when I’m dead. Which will probably be because of you.” He raised his restrained arms as far as his bonds allowed. “How about a stretch?”

  “Stretch when you’re dead.”

  Bowyn coughed the word, “Chigit.”

  Six quiet minutes later, the Branch III exited the subverse just beyond the Br’niss system’s most distant orbital body.

  “We’re alone,” Cinnea reported from the bridge.

  That was not unexpected. Given its task, it was near certain that the Noruz would arrive after them, if it arrived at all. Either ship could only maintain the current coordinates for a short duration before their presence could and would be detected by the enemy. Thirty minutes, at most.

  Only a fraction of that time had passed, breathlessly, before Tomiris announced, “The Noruz! It’s here!”

  “Get me Vax!”

  “We recovered the object,” Vax commed in short order. “It’s a life capsule. Damaged but operational. It’s fused shut. We’re working on opening it.”

  “Is there a way I can board the Noruz?”

  Bowyn gave the answer: “You’re wearing it, Airgetlam. Stick a helmet on that voidsuit and take a walk.”

  Arixa hesitated but a heartbeat before grabbing her suit helmet from where she had stowed it. She commed, “Vax, Cinnea, position the ships so I can cross over.”

  “Done it before?” Bowyn asked.

  Arixa ignored the question, to which Bowyn knew the answer.

  “I’m coming with you,” Leimya insisted.

  Arixa didn’t argue. Given events, she preferred to keep her sister close anyway. “Get suited.”

  The hatch from the bridge opened, and Cinnea appeared. “I’ll come, too.”

  “Oh, Cinn, what did I ever do to you?” Bowyn lamented on seeing her.

  “It’s not personal,” she answered while grabbing a voidsuit. “Not entirely.”

  Having only needed to don her helmet, Arixa was first to leave the common area and enter the open airlock, where she waited impatiently.

  She commed Tomiris, “They’re yours. If I haven’t said yet... it’s good to have you back.”

  “You said,” she returned warmly. “The ships are in position. Kiss Ivar for me.”

  “May I join her?” Vaspa asked.

  “If you won’t distract each other too much,” Arixa answered.

  Momentarily, her sister and Cinnea arrived, and the airlock was sealed. The lighting changed color, and a persistent chirp filled Arixa’s helmet: warning that the chamber was being emptied of life-giving air. Cinnea meanwhile opened a box and took out a length of cord, then removed a tubular device connected to a mounting on the side wall. She clipped the cord to the suits of Arixa, Leimya and herself.

  The outer hatch cracked into two halves, which began to separate. Past them lay the cold, star-strewn void and the dim, rounded shape of the Noruz.

  Cinnea took careful, holo-assisted aim with the tubular device, and a nearly invisible line shot into the space between the two ships. Presumably it anchored on the Noruz’s hull; the line was too faint to see even in Arixa’s helmet display. Reattaching the tube to its mount, Cinnea triple-clipped their shared suit cord to the anchored line connecting the ships—presumably so that three lives would not hang by a single thread.

  “Three coming across, Vax,” Arixa commed.

  “Our door is open. Welcome.”

  “And the capsule?”

  “Slow going. We do not wish to damage the contents.”

  With hands on the anchor line, Cinnea shoved gently off into the void. Leimya followed, and Arixa pushed off last.

  She had stood many times upon the naked void in the Sagaris’s contemplation deck, but that was an illusion. That was as nothing compared to the experience of passing through it with only a voidsuit as armor against grim death.

  The grandeur and majesty stole her breath, but she could not savor the moment. Ivar waited on the other end of the cable along which she flew. Or else he did not.

  There would be other moments.

  * * *

  “Kiss Ivar for me,” Tomiris commed the departing Arixa.

  Moments later, an alert showed the activation of the airlock. The three transferring to the Noruz were on their way.

  Then came a sound behind her, that of the hatch to the bridge opening.

  “Vaspa?” she said, twisting her head to look.

  A smile had already been on her lips, but now it vanished instantly. Warrior instinct drove her to try to leap from her station—a move foiled by her seat harness.

  One of the two men who had burst through the hatch behind her was Bowyn. The other she knew, too, if barely. His face was one she hadn’t seen since Nemoora. He was an Eraínn of Bowyn’s crew—his name escaped her. But he hadn’t been aboard the Branch III—or he should not have been.

  While she scrambled to release her harness, half-succeeding, Tomiris felt a stab in her neck, and her limbs fell slack and ceased to function. Her mind followed.

  In her last instant of consciousness, she remembered the other’s name.

  Oisinn.

  * * *

  A hatch on the Noruz stoo
d open, as promised. Cinnea had landed the anchor line near it, leaving but a small distance for the boarders to cross while secured only to each other. This was achieved without difficulty, and the three soon occupied the airlock, sealing it behind them. When it was filled with ship air, its inner hatch popped, Arixa shed her suit’s confining helmet and pushed through.

  An unfamiliar man met them, one of Vax’s crew.

  “Where?” Arixa demanded of him without preface.

  Seemingly unoffended and amenable to her haste, he guided them at a run down the ship’s gently curving corridors. The dash ended in a small bay that was dwarfed by those on the vastly larger Sagaris. Near its center, several individuals were gathered around a metallic white bulk. Past them was visible the intense blue light of some cutting tool.

  Baako was there, unmistakable from any distance. So was Vaxsuvarda. He turned to witness the three visitors from the Branch III race up but didn’t bother with greetings that he must have known would fall flat.

  On her way over, Arixa slipped the suit glove off her right hand. “Make way,” she said, pushing up to the capsule’s visibly damaged surface.

  Liquid metal flowed from the implants in her right arm, down her fingers and over the surface of the capsule where it forced its way into the rend made by the cutting tool, which the operator now extinguished.

  Metal groaned and popped as the ILA expanded inside the cut, separating its edges. When the infiltrating tendrils reached a joint, a rectangular section of the scarred capsule’s exterior burst outward and clanged loudly on the floor.

  Behind that section was a second, unmarred panel. One of Vax’s crew pulled it back, revealing—

  “Ivar!” Arixa cried out. She let no one come between her and the opening.

  It wasn’t immediately apparent whether Ivar lived, but he was not unharmed.

  In the place where his right eye had been was a black hollow.

  “Ivar!”

  She shoved her arms inside, unclipping a harness that held him fast. When it was undone and she she started drawing him out, his body felt limp.

  It was also incomplete. More than just Ivar’s right eye was missing. His right arm ended in a blackened stump above the elbow.

  Feeling despair, and still uncertain whether or not he lived, Arixa dragged Ivar fully out of the capsule.

  In doing so, she learned that his left leg, too, was gone, from mid-thigh on.

  “Ivar!” Arixa’s repeated shouts of his name grew ever more desperate as she set him on the hangar floor and withdrew the ironglove from her right palm to better feel the heart beating inside his bare, tattooed chest—if his heart was still present and beating.

  She felt a reassuring warmth, and perhaps movement, but instead of waiting patiently to confirm it, she shook Ivar violently. Leimya joined her and laid gentler hands on him.

  He stirred. The stump of his right arm twitched. Arixa ceased her efforts and shifted to cradle Ivar while his head lolled. She spoke his name more quietly now, heart torn between joy and sorrow.

  Ivar’s single eye flew open. His limbs, both whole and not, flailed. He screamed.

  Arixa restrained and comforted him. “Ivar, it’s me! You’re safe!”

  Gasping for breath, he sent wild glances all over before focusing on Arixa without apparent recognition. He looked at Leimya, at Cinnea, who hung back a step, and then at Baako, Vax and the strangers of the Noruz crew.

  When his eye found Arixa again, she sensed familiarity.

  “Why can’t I see?” he asked. At the same moment, the remnant of Ivar’s right arm rose as if to send that hand to his eye.

  The effort failed, as it must. He looked down at where his arm should have been. His mouth opened wide, releasing an all but soundless whimper.

  “Ivar, it’s all right,” Leimya offered. Arixa kept a tight grip on his intact left arm, knowing that he might lash out, as she would have, in his place. Baako understood, too, and lowered himself to set staying hands on Ivar’s remaining leg, his right.

  “My eye! Is it—?” Ivar uttered. Twisting in his friends’ grasp, he craned his neck to look down, while the stump of his left leg rose into the field of his impaired vision.

  “Fizzbik will fix you,” Arixa promised soothingly.

  To an enemy Arixa would say anything, with no regard for what was true. But she preferred never to lie to those close to her. Ivar least of all.

  Yet this was more likely a lie than not. She had no idea of Fizzbik’s capabilities, but in no way did she suspect they might extend to restoring missing eyes or limbs taken off joints and all.

  That empty promise, made past swollen throat, did not keep Ivar from thrashing like a hooked eel. He screamed, a wail of despair which resounded off the broad walls of the bay.

  Arixa restrained him, securely but with care, while Leimya stroked his hair and spoke softly into his ear.

  “Go easy, Ivar!” Leimya’s two good eyes were wet with tears. “Let us help you. We need you, Ivar.”

  Unresponsive to their words, the mutilated hero bucked and roared on the floor. Holding him down, Arixa forced a separation of mind and body that the former might not succumb, dragging the latter with it to defeat. To see Ivar thus was nothing short of devastating. Yet feelings of devastation must wait.

  With barely focused vision, she saw one of Vax’s crew remove Ivar’s ax from the interior of the capsule. She saw Cinnea slouched against its outer casing, wearing a hopeless look.

  A member of the Noruz crew wormed his way in with a hypo which he pressed to Ivar’s restrained good arm. As the limb relaxed in Arixa’s grip, she met Ivar’s lone eye. It pleaded with her as it grew unfocused.

  “Kill me, Arixa...” he said hoarsely. “Kill me... kill...”

  He slipped fully into unconsciousness. Arixa released him, as did Baako. On her knees, she fell back, looking anywhere but at that hollow eye pit and black stumps. Leimya threw suited arms around Arixa’s neck and hung there in silence.

  “I’m sorry, Arixa,” Vax said softly. “At least he lives. It’s possible that—”

  While he spoke, Arixa accepted an incoming comm. Only a small part of her which wasn’t numb registered the sender’s identity as ominous.

  “Hello, Arixa,” Bowyn said.

  Vax stopped talking and turned away, evidently responding to a comm of his own.

  “We don’t have long before the Jir locate us,” Bowyn said, “so this will be short. In fact, I’m already gone. Now that you and your little head-remover are gone, the Eraínn have retaken the Branch. How? I brought along an extra crew member, just in case. I’m tempted to tell you Cinnea knew about him, just to sow mistrust, but she didn’t. You two enjoy each other’s company.

  “I’m expelling the Dawn from my ship. We had three stasis chambers aboard for emergencies, so I’m triple-pocking and ejecting them. A few won’t fit, and time is short, so they can stay. I’ll take care of them, if they behave. I’ll return them sometime, if it’s convenient. Don’t worry. I won’t give away your camp. Neither will the Branch. Every ship I own constantly scrubs its manifest. It’s like I was never there.

  “Goodbye, Airgetlam. I hope you understand that we’re still friends.” He laughed. “Captain Bowyn out.”

  “Bowyn!” Arixa roared, knowing that any reply was pointless. The intended recipient was no longer in this realm.

  Her mind, which had been occupied with the extreme effort of postponing grief now raced to understand a changed reality. A new course must be determined. Quickly, before others could set a course for her.

  While her thoughts raced, she detected odd movements among the Noruz crew. As if instructed to do so, which surely they had been, they shifted away from the capsule and the guests from the Branch clustered on the floor around Ivar.

  All moved away except one, who instead attempted to sneak closer to Arixa. Noticing in plenty of time, she flew to her feet and grabbed the man by the collar with her right hand.

  The back of that hand, w
hich was unprotected by either suit gauntlet or ILA, was where her captive set the same hypo he had just used to sedate Ivar.

  She batted the instrument from his hand and snarled at him, but had the presence of mind simply to let him go rather than give in to the urge to punish. Only small part of her decision to yield came from the fact that some of the Noruz crew, having encircled their guests, now held drawn weapons.

  Too late to ward off the hypo, the ironglove flowed to coat Arixa’s hand.

  Because of the ILA, she was always armed, always deadly. But Baako and her sister were not. And anyway, not much was to be gained by slicing open Vax and as many of his crew as her lash could reach in the moments before she succumbed to the sedative.

  Already she wavered, feeling its effects.

  “I’m sorry, Arixa,” she heard Vax say, as she was forced to lean on Baako for support. “Your ship Shifted away. I can’t have you trying to take mine. I’ll...”

  She heard no more.

  * * *

  She awakened in the Blue, at first gently and then with a start. She found herself harnessed to one wall of a small, bare chamber. A cell. A few more cushioned alcoves dotted its other walls, but they were vacant.

  She was the room’s only occupant. Yet she was not alone. Much of the bulkhead on her left consisted of a large, transparent pane behind which Leimya hovered with one hand on a grabrail.

  “Arixa,” she greeted. Her voice penetrated the pane via speakers.

  Arixa unclipped, finding she was not otherwise restrained.

  “Please don’t try to escape,” Leimya said. “Vaxsuvarda will release you. He’s on his way. You’re not a prisoner.”

  The iris refused to open for Arixa. “Feels like I might be.”

  “He was protecting his ship. If I know you, he probably had good reason.”

  “Maybe. Where’s Ivar?”

  “Still asleep. We thought it best to wait until you could talk to him.”

  “And our people Bowyn threw off the Branch?”

  “The Noruz took them aboard before we Shifted.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “Yes. They’re confined, but safe.”

  “Who’s missing?”